To promote its support of small businesses, British Bank TSB has released a campaign to instill confidence in using its business banking service. As part of the bank’s recently launched “Life Made More” brand platform, the latest spot features a bakery owner strutting through her company with confidence in slow motion. Those around her watch…
D&AD gave its Pencil award in the Collaborative category to Superunion for its work and relationship with The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and AlmapBBDO, whose client is Alpargatas, the maker of Brazilian flip-flop brand Havaianas. The announcement is part of the first wave of winners for this year. The Collaboration category aims to celebrate long-lasting…
The cautious return of larger gatherings to everything from sports stadiums to restaurants has experiential marketers thinking about what the reset of in-person programming will mean in 2021. Despite signs of digital fatigue among most consumers, the expectation that the pandemic only accelerated the move toward hybrid digital and virtual experiences has taken hold among…
Head of Marketing Peggy Ang discusses connecting with gamers through live celebrity showdowns on the latest ‘Marketer’s Brief’ podcast.
This Ad Age Studio 30 live panel with Piano and ID5 will discuss top strategies as advertisers prepare for the cookieless future.
WarnerMedia’s streaming service HBO Max, which debuted one year ago today, focuses on the human curatorial touch in its interface, with custom collections and human-generated recommendations aimed at serving up a less-daunting selection of programs to peruse. But behind the scenes, the company is tracking hundreds of consumer signals to fine-tune just about everything the…
Amazon Prime Video announced today that it partnered with Martin Solveig & the advertising agency HEREZIE to create a new nocturnal version of his famous video for the worldwide hit Hello, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the song and highlight the arrival of Prime Video’s exclusive night sessions as part of the Roland-Garros tournament. For the first time in Roland-Garros’ history, matches will be played at night on the Philippe-Chatrier court, from May 31st until June 9th. These night sessions will be the best match-ups of the day, and available exclusively on Prime Video in France. Hello’s critically-acclaimed music video has been reworked for the occasion, celebrating the arrival of these unique nocturnal matches and with a surprising list.
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At least two environmental activists won positions on ExxonMobil’s board—with the support of fund managers like BlackRock and State Street—despite the oil giant’s best efforts to prevent shareholders from voting them in, the Wall Street Journal reports. That included a last-minute delay to the voting deadline and lobbying from Exxon against the candidates, who were fielded by Engine No. 1, a small hedge fund calling for the company to better address climate change and its contribution to global carbon emissions.
This kind of activist investing is the most interventionist type of consumer advocacy. Rather than calling for boycotts of goods and services or shaming companies on social media, becoming a shareholder allows people with environmental, labor or safety concerns to have a voice inside the organization. But successes this big are rare.
The win is seen as a rebuke to Exxon CEO Darren Woods and the company’s lackluster investments in renewable energy. Certainly it helped that Exxon delivered $22 billion in pandemic-fueled losses to shareholders last year. Now a substantial portion of the board of directors will push for green initiatives and a move away from fossil fuels.
It’s been a year since 600 & Rising burst onto the scene demanding accountability for systemic racism and lack of diversity in the ad industry. After quick backing from organizations like the 4A’s, its star faded as founder Nathan Young stepped down and the newly formed group restructured.
“Starting over feels like a weird term, but it is a bit of a refresh for us as an organization. When my co-founder departed in July, there was a lot of mending fences, ensuring the organization could remain stable,” Co-founder Bennett D. Bennett tells Ad Age’s Jeanine Poggi. “I moved on with what I believe is still a good-enough mission to stick around.” That mission now includes elevating Black talent and advocating for wage equity.
Chicken McNuggets are about to become tough to find. McDonald’s is pushing its latest celebrity meal collab with ultra-mega-superstars BTS: a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, medium fries, medium Coke and two dipping sauces. The chain’s sales rose 4.6% in the third quarter of last year on the strength of the Travis Scott meal. Factor in BTS’ commensurately larger fanbase and do the math—it’s going to be big.
“McDonald’s announced the BTS Meal in April and since then has been promoting it on social media, including adding a small 7 to its name on Twitter and Instagram,” writes Ad Age’s Jessica Wohl, “and confirming plans for a BTS fan favorite, photocards,” wallet-sized collectible pictures of musicians popular with K-pop stans.
Know someone that’s been critical to helping your team navigate ever-changing post-pandemic business? Nominate them today for Ad Age’s annual 40 under 40 list. Deadline for entries is July 15; get more details and enter at AdAge.com/40u40.
Electronics brand LG saw a sales boost from consumers stuck at home during the pandemic, and, amid record-breaking earnings, it’s now leaning into gaming. “LG is introducing a focus on livestream gaming into its marketing for the first time. This month, the brand kicked off its new year-long ‘Only on OLED’ marketing campaign, which marries the two worlds of PC gaming and television with celebrity showdowns on trendy games like Fortnite and streaming platforms like Twitch,” Peggy Ang, LG’s head of marketing, tells Ad Age’s Ilyse Liffreing on the latest episode of the “Marketer’s Brief” podcast.
Megan Fox took on DJ Khaled in Fortnite earlier this month, drawing more than 1 million viewers to the livestream. The brand is hoping that, even as lockdown restrictions lift in many markets, the attachment to electronics as a way of connecting with far-flung people won’t.
Draw me like one of your French executives: For the first time in its 228-year history, the Louvre will be led by a woman, the New York Times reports. Before this, the most prominent position for women in the museum was on the walls. Laurence des Cars has a reputation for breaking new ground in the insular art world, curating an exhibition on Black figures in French art and overseeing the return of a painting looted by Nazis—the first time a French museum has done so willingly.
Is there a doctor in aisle 4? Amazon is looking into expanding its considerable reach with the addition of physical pharmacies, Insider reports. If it does, the retail giant could change the healthcare landscape in much the same way as it did the grocery industry when it bought Whole Foods. Indeed, it is floating Whole Foods locations as possible sites for these pharmacies. That would be a big culture shift, given that most Whole Foods locations specialize in alternative and natural therapies. It’s tough to even find generic pain relievers like acetaminophen.
Crowded house: While brands are devising new ways to entice customers to hand over private data about their online behavior and purchases, there’s a new crop of third-party companies hoping to do the same. They’re offering AirPods, crypto-based rewards or straight up cash. But it still isn’t clear whether there’s room in the ecosystem for this business model.
That does it for today’s Wake-Up Call. Thanks for reading and we hope you are all staying safe and well. For more industry news and insight, follow us on Twitter: @adage.
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Web companies ask consumers for their data, but it’s unclear if brands and publishers will play along.
Ad Age Next: Multicultural Marketing on June 29 will look at inclusive marketing strategies, changes in media buying and measurement, and more.
Head of Marketing Peggy Ang discusses connecting with gamers through live celebrity showdowns on the latest ‘Marketer’s Brief’ podcast.
Sakay.ph is a commuter’s app developed to guide Filipinos in their day-to-day commuting adventures in the busy roads of Metro Manila. To increase brand awareness and drive more app downloads and usage, Sakay.ph launched an in-app feature to solve one of the biggest barriers to love and relationship – distance and traffic.
In the Philippines, there is a long-standing joke about Northerners and Southerners, those who live on opposite ends of Metro Manila, who blame “geographical incompatibility” as the reason for most break-ups. The strategy was simple — exploit the available technology in the Sakay.ph app to solve the age-old question of where to meet a significant other if you live far away from each other.
More than 10,000 couples used the app to meet halfway last Valentine’s Day! We got over 1.3M total campaign reach and 250K additional app downloads in the duration of the campaign.
Sakay Halfway also exceeded the Click Through Rate industry standard of 0.90% with a 10.59% CTR and we achieved over Php 5.7M in terms of PR value with minimal spend.
When it comes to love, Philippine society still has preconceived ‘terms and conditions.’ Because of this, a culture of fear and doubt still exists—people, especially those in unconventional relationships, find it difficult to express love publicly. Oftentimes, a simple loving touch is met with prying, judging eyes,
With these societal rules in place, does love really rule?
Being the catalyst for closeness and acceptance, closeup wanted to encourage people to overcome judgment by making a move. Love rules where we let it.
closeup created the Where Love Rules Live Map, a campaign that centered on finding, identifying, and amplifying safe spaces for non-normative couples to express love publicly, without fear or doubt.
By using the data gathered from couples, we were able to identify 274 safe spaces in one day, and made this available to every couple who needed it by simply visiting an online live map found on a microsite.
It also partnered with relevant influencer couples its audiences know and like to help further push the effort and to get more people to collaborate and share their stories and safe spaces.
Colombia is going through one of its most difficult political moments in recent years. So, to do our bit, we decided to cover our points of sale with the tweets of thousands of Colombians who, like us, are also hungry for peace.
Non-profit organization Change The Ref (CTR) is on a mission to maintain awareness about school shootings. It’s their hope that a new disruptive campaign – Bring Back Lockdown – will do just that by urging Americans to push their representatives to legislate stricter gun control measures.
Gun-related violence in schools is a pervasive issue and has greatly increased in recent years. However, for the first time in decades, school shootings stats have decreased – only due to the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s shocking to think that it took a global pandemic to reduce America’s school violence epidemic; but it’s important for people to realize that one problem (COVID-19 pandemic) can’t be the only way to solve another problem (school shootings). Children should feel safe in their schools regardless of societal conditions.
As the world opens and people reemerge, school shooting survivors are making their voices heard – they demand action; they demand security. ‘Bring Back Lockdown’ leverages CTR’s use of urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to expose the disastrous effects of the mass shooting pandemic to spark the conversation from the ground up. The film is a creative misdirection on Covid and the resulting lockdown. Its intention is to make people stop and think. Featuring Parkland student liana Waitze Zuckerman, ‘Bring Back Lockdown’ leverages the Covid lockdown as a metaphor intended to spark debate and encourage people to visit BringBackLockdown.com, where they can petition their local congressperson, pressuring them to act on gun reforms.
Founded and led by women, Gennev is a Seattle-based digital health platform that offers holistic and comprehensive support for women in all stages of menopause. They offer women a virtual clinic with OBGYNs and health coaches on staff, in addition to educational services, community and wellness products.
Today manufacturers have a role to play in the ecological transition, they must change. That’s why Volkswagen is committed with a strong ambition: carbon neutral mobility by 2050.
Without promising miracles, Volkswagen is launching initiatives to change about everything. For this, the brand does not content itself with producing more electric vehicles but adopts a more global approach. With its Way to Zero program, Volkswagen is rethinking the way to build its vehicles with a neutral carbon footprint, to move them forward with green electricity and even to make them disappear with a recycling program. Real initiative that must be shared with an honest tone of voice.
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